Saturday, August 23, 2008

Evil Twin Nemeses

These two get me every year - one before the marathon and one after. The latter is plantar fasciitis, which I'm sure I will be crying about in November. The current nemesis is piriformis syndrome. Literally, it's a pain in the butt. The piriformis is this nasty little muscle that, when angry, squeezes the sciatic nerve. It produces not only a sharp, stabbing pain in the buttock, but also lovely radiating pain throughout the hip and down the leg. So, what I was hoping was just some hip pain is the return of my evil nemesis - PS. I didn't experience this last year until the 16-18 mile long runs, but it can apparently also be caused by trauma, so my fall on my left hip at the Chupacabra run probably didn't help.

The treatment for PS is much like that for its evil twin (PF) - conservative (e.g. no running) - or an evil butt injection, as above. {The featured red muscle there is the piriformis.} Since neither of those are going to happen, it's conservative running for me - staying off the banked left side of the road, flat/even surfaces, Motrin, and ice.

Oh, except for this morning, when I ran the (also evil) Sunrise 10k in the hills of Alamo Heights on wet streets on the left side of the road. I'm icing my butt right now, but will soon post what are sure to be super ugly race pics - since I was gritting my teeth running up hills, cursing my evil left piriformis muscle.